How Early Do I Need To Arrive For A Job Interview?

Job Hunt Training in Michigan.

My rule and what I teach has been for you to arrive at least a half hour to 45 minutes before the actual interview time. You always want to check in with whomever you are interviewing with –typically the front desk no later than 7-8 minutes before your appointed interview time. That gives them time to walk to the front desk and meet you and then walk you to the conference room where the interview will be held. Be courteous of their time. And if you are going to meet with several people during the one interview, you may make it 10 minutes to give them time to assemble so that the interview starts on time.

Because I’ve been in places trying to get to a meeting where there’s construction especially in the summer season. Even just going to a grocery store it turns into a whole day affair sometimes.

Especially with an interview – the pressure and stress you’re under, the stress trying to get there on time, making sure you remember everything. So if you leave enough time to drive very calmly to the location of the interview you will be in a better state of mind when you arrive and finally go into the interview.

When you arrive early, you can sit in the parking lot with your A/C on, relaxing, listening to music, getting yourself psyched up so you can walk in the office relaxed. Make sure you park as close as you can to the entrance that you need to go into. If there is a question as to which entrance, like there are two entrances and the person setting up the interview didn’t tell you exactly which one. This is a good time to get them on the phone and double check which entrance.

If you’re meeting a recruiter or you’re meeting a contact beforehand, make sue to add that time into your arrival time. Remember that person is not going into an interview that could change their lives so their stress level will not be as high as yours. A good rule of thumb is to leave 15 minutes extra for these types of meetings. If it gets done early, great you have that much more time to focus on your thoughts.

You don’t want the person you are meeting with to say something or give you some new piece of information without having time to process it before going into the interview.

Now, what if you are to meet somebody like an account executive before the interview and he/she is running late, call your contact and inform them of this fact so that they can call the person you are interviewing with and let them know or they may just tell you to go into the interview without meeting the account person.

I have had this happen to me one time where the account person I was suppose to meet with for 5 minutes before the interview got tied up in traffic. I called my contact and informed her of what was going on and she instructed me to go up to the clients’ office without waiting as not to be late.

Here is one thing you have to remember, the person conducting the interview doesn’t care or even know that there is an account person involved in the process all he/she knows is that you were late and the 3 other people were not. The person doing the interviewing is not only looking at reasons to hire you, but also for reasons NOT to hire you. In today’s world it is rare to see somebody stick out their neck for somebody else they just met. The hiring manager will be judged based on your performance, so if you are late and unorganised in the in the interview, you will probably be that way as an employee. And that will reflect on the person that hired you. Don’t lose before you begin!

Another thing the interviewer may be thinking, “Well, can we really trust this person to represent our company in meetings or at client sites?” They may also think, “Wow if I send this guy into a meeting to represent me or my department, is this the way he’s going to arrive at the meeting?” Always make sure that you’re early.

Most interviews go off without the drama listed above, but if you follow these simple steps I believe that the chance for such drama is reduced.

Thanks much for reading, please leave me comments and/or thumbs up and share this post with others.

This is just one of the strategies that you will find in my online course The 10 Steps to Finding Your Dream Job course…. Learn More…..